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A federal district judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on the Trump administration, forbidding the enforcement of an executive order signed on President Donald Trump’s first day in office that attempted to unilaterally redefine the Birthright Citizenship clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
The order comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of federal judges to issue such injunctions, finding that, except in limited circumstances, federal judges should issue injunctions that are more tailored to the parties involved.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante, who is based in New Hampshire, issued the ruling in a class-action lawsuit featuring multiple parties, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who would be detrimentally affected by Trump’s executive order. The Supreme Court suggested in its decision last month that class-action suits could be one of the ways in which a federal judge may be able to issue a nationwide order.
Laplante’s injunction places a temporary block on Trump’s enforcement of the executive order, barring the administration from enforcing it against citizens who were born in the U.S., as well as future children who may be affected by Trump’s order.
In a statement announcing his decision, Laplante indicated that his reasoning was “not a close call to the court.”
“The deprivation of U.S. citizenship and an abrupt change of policy that was longstanding” is tantamount to “irreparable harm” for those involved in the lawsuit and others like them across the country, Laplante said.
In the text of his one-page order, Laplante indicated that the aggrieved parties had shown a “likelihood of success on the merits of their claims.”
“The potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to Respondents if the order is granted,” Laplante added.
Trump and his loyalists have frequently derided judges for issuing rulings against his orders — including his attempt to change the definition of birthright citizenship — by baselessly claiming that such judges were partisan. However, that argument may fall flat, as Laplante was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush.
Laplante has also been more cautious in his previous rulings. Whereas Trump has bashed judges in the past for issuing nationwide injunctions, the New Hampshire-based federal judge previously found Trump’s birthright citizenship order to be unconstitutional but narrowed the scope of his order to only those involved in the case.
On Thursday, in announcing his nationwide injunction in the class-action lawsuit, Laplante acknowledged this point.
“I’m the judge who wasn’t comfortable with issuing a nationwide injunction,” he said in his courtroom. “Class action is different. The Supreme Court suggested class action is a better option.”
Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, called the injunction “a huge victory” that will “help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended.”
“We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn’t trample on the citizenship rights of one single child,” Wofsy added.
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